Letters: 'fiscal cliff'

In an essay [“The Obama squeeze,” Opinion Dec. 11], Washington Post writer Michael Gerson criticizes the president for not having left House Speaker John Boehner “a soft place to land” in the current negotiations about how to cope with end-of-the-year tax increases. This is the same Michael Gerson supporting the same John Boehner who steadily denies the elderly, the infirm, children, and other needy Americans a soft place to land in the same negotiations. How cheeky is that? – Jim Varnadore, City Heights

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Michael Gerson’s editorial is familiar Republican rhetoric on the impending fiscal cliff. Essentially he asserts that President Obama won’t or can’t give the Republicans political cover on “serious structural cuts in entitlement programs” and give Republicans “a soft place to land.”

The part that really woke me up from my pre-coffee morning stupor was his statement that “despite Rep. Paul Ryan’s best efforts, entitlement reform is not yet a popular, bottom-up political movement. It won’t happen unless the president leads-providing cover for the political class to move together.”

Wow, really? Having your Medicare, Social Security, veterans benefits and every other entitlement program take a cut is not a winner with the majority of the American public? What a shock.

I may be wrong, but I think Michael Gerson has been to Washington state partaking of some of the newly legalized marijuana. – Sal Tarantino, San Diego

Much uncertainty exists regarding outcome of the dysfunctional federal government sending us over the fiscal cliff. Two branches, Senate [Legislative] and president [Executive], are determined to send us over if they can’t get their way.

One thing is certain, however. The national debt cliff will engulf all U.S. citizens as our re-elected president is determined to spend 30 percent more federal funds than are available. When President Obama began in 2009, the U.S. national debt was slightly over $10 trillion, with each citizen owing $35,000 of the total. After four years of virtually unlimited profligate spending, and now a total debt of over $16 trillion, a new U.S. citizen at birth today accepts $52,000 debt, or an increase of $17,000. Those who voted to return Barack Obama to office may anticipate that in four more years, each voter and each of their children could owe an additional $17,000 for a total of $69,000. A family of four will be obligated for $276,000.

Voting for Obama was voting to put yourself further in the poorhouse and say, “I don’t care about the future of my children and grand children. They can just fend for themselves.” A truly sad situation. – Ronald Mears, Alpine

The best thing that could happen to this country is to go ahead and drive over the fiscal cliff. It would not be the end of the world. It would require a long-overdue belt-tightening on everyone’s part but it just might make fact of the warning that we cannot forever continue to overspend, borrow, overspend and borrow.

But if we don’t go over the fiscal cliff; if our president and our congress and our people are too dumb to recognize that we’re headed exactly where Greece and Spain and the rest of Europe find themselves; if we’re willing to be satisfied with 20 percent unemployment, bread lines, and the inability to borrow because our credit is no good, then let’s just cave in and renew what isn’t working.

Somewhere, sometime, there will be a national realization that, “There is no free lunch.” We created this problem. It should be ours to solve, not our grandchildren’s. Better now than later! – Marty Bouman, San Diego

First let us agree on three facts. One, government cannot produce wealth; it can only function on the proceeds/taxing the wealth of the people it governs. Two, if the government were to confiscate the wealth of all those in the top two highest tax brackets, it would be unable to pay off the entirety of the federal debt. Three, the majority (50 percent plus one) of the federal government budget is consumed by the nondiscretionary programs (entitlements) and debt interest.

Given these facts, one must conclude at least two things. One, taxing primarily those in the two current highest tax brackets will not alone solve the current program. Two, only focusing on military- and defense-related (VA, DOE nuclear programs, etc.) government programs, will not affect the majority of the federal budget.

Now, how does this affect our discussion on the “fiscal cliff”? It affects the conversation in that we cannot come to a long-term budget solution by only focusing on taxation. Therefore, any discussion will need to talk about government spending. Government spending is far too high, if even the higher rates being presently proposed by the Obama administration will not fund the spending proposed by the Obama administration. If government were a person, they would not be able to fiscally survive.

As for taxation, we need to (in the long term) have federal tax receipts be greater than federal spending to pay for the federal debt. We need to reduce spending, so that tax receipts can realistically exceed expenditures. If we can agree on certain underlying facts, it will help facilitate any compromise our leaders come up with. Without that they will only be talking at one another rather than to one another. – James Udan, Chula Vista

Thank you for printing articles in Sunday’s paper on how business leaders and underwater home borrowers feel about solving the problems posed by the fiscal cliff (“Business leaders weigh in on fiscal cliff” and “Underwater borrowers scared by fiscal cliff,” Business, Dec. 9). My understanding is that an average working family will pay an additional $2,200 per year if nothing is resolved. Failure to extend the payroll tax reduction adds another $1,000 per year. The number paying the alternative minimum tax will increase from 4 million to 28 million, with their average tax increasing $3,700 per year.

While everyone’s opinion is interesting, only the opinions of San Diego County’s five congressional representatives really count. I posed the question to my representative, Congressman Duncan Hunter. The response from his office is that his main concern is that the superrich not pay higher taxes, as proposed by President Obama. So, all you average families out there, if Duncan Hunter is worth $2,200 to $6,900 to you, continue to support him. And let’s hear what our other representatives are thinking on this subject, before it’s too late. – Hal Valderhaug, La Mesa

The country is facing a major financial hurdle at the end of the year, 22 days from the writing of this letter. So what does Congress do? They go home. Did any of them think that maybe they should stay in Washington and actually earn their pay? You know, WORK!

And are the Republicans not paying attention? We just had an election in which their ideas were pretty well thrown out. Do they not understand that it is time to compromise?

Another question: why are the Republicans so protective of the plutocrats? For the most part the plutocrats have enriched themselves and their Congressional lackeys, but have done nothing for the average citizen.

Color me disgusted! – Peter Klein, La Mesa

This ongoing “fiscal cliff” wrangling is idiotic and childish, not to mention a complete waste of time and effort. Plus, in 60 days these same Washington nitwits will subject us to a rerun when they argue over raising the national debt.

Why not take a rational, sensible approach to ending this endless game? Why not adopt an obvious, permanent solution?

Why collect income tax at all? Let the tax accountants and IRS agents go out and find good, honest work!

The solution: Let the federal government simply print whatever money it needs! So what if we experience some increases in prices for goods and services. The superrich, with 1,000 times the wealth of the poor, will suffer 1,000 times the pain. Can anything be more fair? Spread the misery equitably. This is the American way. This can become the new normal. – Lance A. Dohe, San Diego

In response to “Obama’s power play” (Opinion, Dec. 8): Once again Charles Krauthammer has it exactly right. We are on a path of unsustainable spending and headed for a European-type disaster and financial ruin. Unless the Republicans develop some backbone this will not be just a probability but an absolute certainty. – Janet Piatek, Normal Heights

I am troubled with the hypocrisy surrounding the “fiscal cliff.” It appears that all the relevant players, the president and both parties in Congress approach this pending financial dislocation as if it materialized out of the ether.

A series of conscious actions and decisions by our government have created this situation.

• The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were not funded by current revenues.

• The Bush tax cuts approved by both houses of did not result in offsetting revenues.

• The reduction of the Social Security tax rate from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent was approved by the president and Congress further weakening the fiscal integrity of Social Security as well as contributing to this farce.

• And the biggest folly of all, Congress’s attempt to leverage itself by institutionalizing massive spending cuts to both military and civilian programs resulting in the virtually inevitable failure to reach an agreement on reducing the federal debt. This ill-conceived and inept approach was given the imprecise and pretentious name “sequestration.” “Castration” would probably have been far more descriptive and accurate.

Every political figure has conveniently ignored responsibility for this chain of events. As John Kennedy paraphrased Galeazzo Ciano, after the Bay of Pigs, “Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.” Hence, the absence of ownership for the “fiscal cliff.”

The proposed solutions by both the Democratic and Republican parties are equally defective. Sharp spending cuts will have a reverse multiplier effect on the money supply, edging us into a recession. Nor can we spend our way out of debt. Current monetary policy of artificially low interest rates has failed to engineer anything more than feeble growth. And parenthetically, on balance, the Republicans’ assertion that increased taxes on the upper 2 percent of the population will discourage investment and economic growth is unsubstantiated and historically inaccurate.

Only a gradual and PREDICTABLE schedule (to reduce uncertainty both for Wall Street and Main Street) of increased tax revenues AND moderated expenditures (regardless of how they are characterized) has any realistic chance of avoiding a recession or an explosion of inflation and the consequential pain and suffering.

It will take courageous political figures, selfless leaders in industry, finance and technology and equally selfless proponents of social safety net programs to overcome entrenched conflicting ideologies and the greedy self-interested.

From where will they come? In the musical “1776,” John Adams’ soliloquy comes to mind. “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?” – T. Robert Huntley, Vista

This is the year the world is predicted to end, we are going over the cliff and our national economy will end as we knew it to be. Hogwash – this nation is too great to go under due to errors of some elected individuals. The people have voted, they have decided how they want this nation to be governed. Therefore, stop pointing fingers at each other and accept that one political party is going to get its way, and hope that the decisions will be good or correctable at a later date. I think the Republican Party should give the president everything he wants, and let it be the party of the president that will be recorded in history as to what occurs and the impact it will have on this nation’s future.

My father told me along time ago, the main difference between the Republican Party and the Democrat Party is Republicans want to provide fishing hooks, and Democrats want to provide the fish for the people to eat. Do we go fishing, or line up for fish handouts? Either way, we eat. – Willard “Doc” Howard, Chula Vista

Before and after the election, Obama and crew continually bamboozled us with the idea that taxes would be raised only on the rich, the 2 percent with incomes over $250,000. Ninety-eight percent of the electorate could vote for Obama with their vote to raise taxes on only someone else. Seemingly, Obama and crew thought if they repeated the lie often, it would become true.

I have received a letter dated Nov. 21 from the Social Security Administration giving me the “good” news that my benefit for 2013 will increase 1.7 percent due to cost of living. The “bad” news is that, based on their analysis of my 2011 tax return, my deducted Medicare premium will increase, so that my monthly check will decrease from $1,290 to $1,093. Furthermore, Obama and crew have reduced my CD income to nil and are “licking their chops” to attack my investment income.

My AGI is typically one-third of what Obama and crew define as “rich.” I am a child of the Depression and have lived prudently to provide for retirement. I will be able to live out financially regardless of their profligate tax policy. But as a fiscal conservative living in liberal California, I will die distressed with the proclivity of my fellow voters to create debt for future generations. – Jon I. Fellers, San Diego